Twin Flower

I saw this film at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, and director Laura Luchetti was present.

When I bought my ticket, I had no idea what to expect. I usually see 12 to 15 films over the course of the festival, and buy many of my tickets blindly. Twin Flower was one of those blind purchases. Good thing I did, because it was the best film I saw.

Luchetti adopts a visual style to tell a story about escape and belonging and what it means to want protection, or to provide it for someone else. The two main characters, played by non-actors, have incredibly good chemistry. The bathtub scene is one of the most erotic I've watched in many years. It is tastefully done, and incredibly sexy. During the Q&A after the screening, Luchetti told the audience that some of the scenes were not part of the original script, but just the characters improvising, and they turned out to be some of the most beautiful in the film. I hope this hidden gem gets the attention it deserves!

Escaping from different circumstances, teens turning adult find a common path for survival. "Twin Flower" employs a typical movie plot that switches between the struggle for survival and the developing relationship, moving at a lanquid, steady pace. Our couple is not so much on the run, as on the stroll, favouring realism over sensationalism in a well crafted slice of life.

As Basim and Anna, newcomers Kallil Kone and Aniello Arena nail the right balance of awkward attraction, uncomfortable wariness, loss of innocence and accepting of trust of any new companionship. The first time actors' develop on screen as the story unfolds, which takes it's bloody time, but never strays from the goal.

Though Europe's immigration issue is at the core of the conflict, this is really an age old story about kids forced to grow up way too fast, in a slow series of events. Like most rewards, It demands patience.

This Italian film, set in Sardinia, features two teens on the run, but for varying reasons. Anastasiya Bogach and Kallil Kone star as Anna and Basim respectively.

Anna has suffered some type of trauma and we see early on that she is being chased by a man. But, it is not till about two thirds of the movie has progressed do we learn exactly why. Basim is a refugee from the Ivory Coast, with no papers, who wants to get to northern Europe and start a new life there.

Their paths cross when Basim intervenes on Anna's behalf, when two troublemakers on a motorbike are harassing her. Anna has been so traumatized that she doesn't speak, but the two develop a bond anyway as time passes.

This is the type of movie that if I wrote much more about the plot I would be writing spoilers. But I will say that the filmmaker Laura Luchetti made things a little more confusing than they needed to be with regular flashbacks and also keeping the viewer in suspense a little too long as to what was really happening with Anna and why a psychopath was relentlessly perusing her.

Overall, although the movie will, in my opinion, appeal only to a certain type of cinephile, I found it to be a heartfelt and suspenseful tale that, for me, proved to be worth watching.